‘More Than a Game’ is less than honest

Coach Dru Joyce is surrounded by the St. Vincent-St. Mary's basketball team in a moment of prayer. (Lionsgate)

Coach Dru Joyce is surrounded by the St. Vincent-St. Mary's basketball team in a moment of prayer. (Lionsgate)

Coach Dru Joyce is surrounded by the St. Vincent-St. Mary's basketball team in a moment of prayer. (Lionsgate)

By Roger Moore

DETAILS

“More Than a Game”

Rated: PG

When: Opens today

Running time: 1 hr., 42 min.

½

“Access” is what distinguishes the basketball documentary “More than a Game.” Like an agent or recruiter with an eye for talent, filmmaker Kristopher Belman latched onto Akron's LeBron James and his basketball teammates as young teens and filmed them for years as they — or at least James — became stars.

“More Than a Game” bills itself as the story of “the greatest high school basketball team ever.” That it may very well be, with James, anointed “The Chosen One” long before Oprah found Obama, as its star.

But “More Than a Game” isn't “more than a game.” It's a myopic film, purporting to show how these kids were groomed as athletes and as men, “building character.” How winning all the time (with a rare loss or two) with the most talented baller in the game gave them “character” isn't apparent.

The film picks up the story in the '90s at the AAU championships in Orlando, when LeBron and his very young running mates (he was 13) fell just short of winning the title for their age group. NBA fans may smirk on realizing that Orlando is still his kryptonite.

We follow James and crew as they are recruited to a private high school and proceed to dominate high school basketball in Ohio, and then the nation. Boys grow into young men and mesh as a team. James speaks adoringly of the guys, the guys speak adoringly of LeBron and much love is shared by all — including the local and national media.

But that's not good drama. The story is so sanitized that even the scandal that took James out of competition for much of his senior year is glossed over. His “home life” is limited to showing his mom, not the girlfriend with whom he's had two kids.

It's also a movie that leaps to a premature conclusion. The kids who played in support of “King” James seem well-adjusted. But they're still in their 20s.

There is dazzling basketball here and an interesting father-son relationship (coach Joyce was father of the shortest player on the team). They're just too young to be looking back on their “best years” just yet.